Browsing: Navy football

Army, Navy and Air Force have locked in their season-opening football games, all starting the year at home against teams outside the top-tier Football Bowl Subdivision. Navy announced today that it will host Colgate at noon on Sept. 5 with the game televised on CBS Sports Network. It will be a nonconference opener for the first-ever conference football season at Annapolis; the Midshipmen will play in the American Athletic Conference, which has not released its league schedule for the year. The Mids’ nonconference slate is set, and Colgate is the only team on it that won’t make a yearly appearance. Navy hosts Air…

Navy head football coach Ken Niumatalolo stands one win away from a third-straight postseason bowl appearance, remains unbeaten against Army and is poised to lead the Midshipmen into football conference play for the first time in school history. Can you put a price on that? Yes: $1,574,810. That’s Niumatalolo’s 2014 salary, according to USA Today’s annual college football pay roundup, ranking him 60th out of the 121 Football Bowl Subdivision coaches listed. He easily outpaces Air Force’s Troy Calhoun ($892,750 in total compensation, 74th) and Army first-year coach Jeff Monken ($834,667, 77th). Niumatalolo’s pay would rank fourth among coaches in the American Athletic Conference,…

Navy defensive back Wave Ryder, he of “Jeopardy!” fame, is penciled in atop the depth chart at the Mids’ “rover” position to start the 2013 season. The senior from Hawaii is also making at least his third appearance on another preseason list: Athlon Sports’ college football All-Name Team. He’s not alone, either — younger brother Blaze, a sophomore who enters the year as Navy’s backup center, also made the list, as did junior reserve defensive lineman Vin Rider. No relation. No other service academies have representatives among the alliterative (San Diego State’s Christian Cumberlander), mythological (Colorado’s Thor Eaton) or just…

The blog CDR Salamander includes posts about a wide range of naval topics — strategy, shipbuilding, diversity, fleet training, budgets and even new Japanese flattops that aren’t carriers. At all. But one of the blog’s most popular recent posts, at least judging by the 200-plus comments it has received in less than a week, is by an unnamed “recent graduate of the United States Naval Academy” who gets to his point fairly fast: “Division I football has its place in big state-schools, but amongst the comparatively small service academies it is a parasite that takes away admissions from more deserving candidates,…

It’s to be expected that in a recent ESPN interview with the head of the American Athletic Conference, the word “Navy” appears only once. After all, the league begins official operations in just a few days, and commissioner Mike Aresco has 10 current members to worry about. Navy won’t join until 2015, and even then, it’ll be a football-only member. It’s the context of that one mention of the Mids that might make Navy fans shake their heads. When Aresco proposed a few rivalry games that could become cornerstone events for the conference, he led off with South Florida and…

First, the traditional warning: Wagering on sports is illegal in nearly every state, can result in a career-destroying (or worse) compulsion, and is never as glamorous as even a poorly reviewed Hollywood movie would have you believe. Still, some sports fans like to know how Las Vegas sees things, and the Golden Nugget has released an early version of that insight, listing the lines of 10 key college football matchups late last week before following up with more than 200 other big games. One of those games is the last one on the Football Bowl Subdivision regular-season schedule: Dec. 14…

Eric Kettani’s football career has been anything but typical: Graduate from Naval Academy, make New England Patriots practice squad, leave Patriots after request for leave from Navy is denied, return to Patriots’ practice squad after being granted an early release from active duty after all, get released by the Patriots, get signed by the Patriots again, then get released again and signed by the Washington Redskins. Now signed to a futures contract with the Redskins, Kettani can participate in offseason practices. After one such practice on Monday, he engaged in another atypical NFL activity — his head coach participated in his…

If the Navy’s still seeking help in its motto department, it need look no further than its academy’s future football conference. The American Athletic Conference has officially debuted its new logo — that’s it on the right — along with a new website, which isn’t shy about touting the league’s impending success. Per the site: The league is about to “write a new chapter in the history of college athletics.” It “excels on every college athletic stage in every major sport.” It’s “The American,” for short, not the “AAC.” That’s too close to the ACC, league officials say. Logos with…

Big East, we hardly new ye. Or, in Navy’s case, we never knew ye. At right, a nice graphic of the 12 schools that will make up the American Athletic Conference in 2015; all but Navy will be in place by 2014 for all sports, the Mids will be football-only members. Leave your take on the new name in the comments section. Here’s five quick hits while you ponder some logo possibilities: 1. Branding 101. The name “suggests a national scope and quality membership,” an ESPN official said in the news release announcing the change. Some might say the name…

Navy football fans who didn’t want the Mids in the Big East will get their wish. Sorta. Per multiple reports, including one from the network that landed the conference’s future media rights, the so-called “Catholic 7” basketball teams that are leaving the Big East will purchase the name and take it with them when they depart next season. No fee has been announced, but one report speculates the name could be worth $8 million to $10 million. The move has generated positive publicity for the departing basketball schools, who’ll return the league name to the hoops roots it began with…